For Good
by PositivelyEmeraldSnowflake
Summary: Modern AU. Anna has always been close to her protective older sister, Elsa. One day, she gets a call from the local hospital with news she never wanted to hear - something has happened to Elsa. One-shot. WARNING: MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. Note: This will make more sense if you first listen to the song For Good from Wicked.


Anna tore down the uniform hospital corridors, every identical stretch of white blurred through the tears that filled her eyes, glancing every now and then at the numbers glinting on the doors. _61… 64… 70… 75… 78…. _Finally. _79_. She stopped, panting, and turned the polished gold handle, her trembling fingers fumbling with the key she had been given. The door swung open smoothly, revealing a clean, brightly lit room with a bed tucked in the corner, just beneath the small white-curtained window. Anna hesitantly approached the bed, dreading what she would see. A voice, weak and quiet but achingly familiar, reached her ears.

"Anna?"

"Elsa…" she whispered. Her sister turned her head, her pale, wan face illuminated by the harsh white lights.

"What happened?" Anna's voice broke. She had been too terrified to pay attention when the nurse had called her and explained, in the same guiltily apologetic tone the police had used three years ago telling her about another loss… She shook her head, trying to keep herself from breaking down. It was going to be okay. Elsa would never leave her like this. She couldn't.

"I was driving back from ice-skating. The truck… it came out of nowhere…"

"It's okay," Anna reassured her, even though it wasn't, not by a long shot. "You need to rest." Elsa shook her head.

"There's no point." The sense of crushing doom weighing down on Anna increased a hundredfold.

"Don't say that!"

"Anna, please. You'll be alright. Just be strong…" Elsa rested her head back on the standard, hospital-issue pillow behind her.

"No. Elsa, stop it. It's okay, you'll get through this," said Anna urgently. "We can still try all the brands of chocolate in the world, star in Wicked, have children and grandchildren… Everything we planned together! You said that you would never leave me!" She was yelling now, barely aware of the tears filling her eyes. Elsa lay in the hospital bed, her thick, platinum hair in a messy frame around her face. Unmoving except for the uneven breaths it seemed to take so much strength for her to draw. At Anna's words, she turned her head towards her sister and drew a deep breath.

"I'm limited," Elsa sang softly. "Just look at me. I'm limited. And just look at you, you can do all I couldn't do, Anna," and Anna knew she was talking about their plans for life.

"Elsa, no!" she exclaimed. "You can't just… give up! You have to try to live! I can't go on if I lose you! Not after everything."

"Well, you'll have to try." Elsa's voice was soft, but her eyes were intense. "Because now it's up to you, for both of us," she sang. A tear slid down Anna's cheek. "Now it's up to you!"

Anna felt like she was in one of those movie scenes where they flash through scenes from the character's life, because suddenly memories overwhelmed her, of times she had spent with Elsa. She remembered when a boy had bullied her in primary school, and Elsa had rolled his jumper in the snow. When they had gotten lost on a walk with their parents, and Elsa had wanted to look for them but Anna had persuaded her to climb trees and explore until they were found. The first time they had seen Wicked, when Elsa literally had to make Anna remember to breathe during Defying Gravity. How they memorised all the songs and sang them everywhere – at home, on the way to school, even in that nerve-wracking time when they were waiting for news of their parents. Anna had always sung Glinda while Elsa was Elphaba. And that awful time after their parents' death, when all Anna could remember was darkness except for Elsa. Elsa had always been there for her.

But now…

Elsa was even paler than normal, almost as white as the pristine hospital sheets surrounding her. Her ice-blue eyes were huge and startling in her thin, drawn face. Anna knew that now it was her turn to be strong for her sister.

"I've heard it said," she choked out, her voice wavering as she sang, "that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn, and we are led to those who help us most to grow – if we let them, and we help them in return." Her voice grew stronger. "Well I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you."

Elsa's gaze was fixed on her as she sang. "Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the woods." Another tear escaped her eye. "Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But, because I knew you, I have been changed for good." Anna was crying in earnest now. Elsa pulled herself into a sitting position on the bed. It was painful to see how much effort it cost her. When she sang, however, her voice was as beautiful as ever.

"It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime," Anna brushed a tear from her eye, unable to imagine a future without Elsa, "so, let me say before we part: so much of me is made of what I learnt from you!" Elsa gave Anna a small smile. "You'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart. And now, whatever way our stories end," Elsa clasped Anna's hand, "I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend!" As Anna closed her eyes, she could almost imagine that they weren't in a hospital far from home, that there had been no tragic accident. That they were still children, singing their hearts out in their bedroom, young Anna listening in awe of Elsa's already powerful voice.

"Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea! Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood!" Elsa's eyes were wet with unshed tears. "Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But, because I knew you…"

"Because I knew you," Anna echoed. Turquoise eyes held crystal blue ones.

"I have been changed," they sang together, "for good."

"And just to clear the air," Elsa sang, "I ask forgiveness, for the things I've done you blame me for." Anna saw a trace of guilt in her sister's eyes, and she knew that Elsa felt responsible for leaving her alone.

"But then I guess we know there's blame to share!" Anna was determined to let Elsa know that it wasn't her fault, that Anna didn't blame her.

"And none of it seems to matter anymore!" Their voices blended then broke apart as they segued effortlessly into the climax of the song, Elsa's voice soaring above Anna's.

"Like a comet pulled from orbit, as it passes the sun!" "Oh, like a ship blown from its mooring, by a wind off the sea!"

"Like a stream that meets a boulder, halfway through the woods!" "Like a seed dropped by a bird in the woods!"

"Who can say if I've been changed for the better?" Both sisters held on to every note, knowing that this would be the last time they sang together. "I do believe I have been changed for the better," they continued. Elsa sank back down on the bed.

"And, because I knew you," Anna sang quietly. Elsa shook her head.

"Because _I _knew you."

"Because I knew you," they both repeated, Elsa's voice barely more than a whisper, "I have been changed…" Elsa's voice faded away. Her sapphire eyes stared unseeing at the whitewashed hospital ceiling. Tears streamed down Anna's face as she finished, alone.

"For good."


End file.
